Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/675

Rh "Now, Mr. Kitten," says Pordage, "I instruct you as vice-commissioner and deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Captain Maryon, of the sloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting this coat on?"

"Mr. Pordage," says Captain Maryon, looking out of his hammock again, "as I can hear what you say, I can answer it without troubling the gentleman. I should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before, or inside out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any objection I have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself."

"Very good, Captain Maryon," says Pordage in a tremendous passion. "Very good, sir. Be the consequences on your own head! Mr. Kitten, it has come to this, help me on with it."

When he had given that order, he walked off with the coat, and all our names were taken, and I was afterward told that Mr. Kitten wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which cost more before it was done with than ever could be calculated, and which only got done with after all, by being lost. #

Our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the Christopher Columbus, hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water. While she was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us in honor of the ship,  and the ship's company, and the other visitors. At that assembly, I believe, I saw all the inhabitants then upon the island, without any exception. I took no particular notice of more than a few, but I found it very agreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children, who were of all ages, and mostly very pretty—as they mostly are. There was one handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and gray hair, that I inquired about. I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning; and her married daughter, a very slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name of Fanny Fisher. Quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself holding to her dress; and her husband just come back from the mine, exceeding proud of her. They were a good-looking set of people on the whole, but I didn't like them. I was out of sorts; in